Guidance

Probation Service Change Bulletin - Issue 12 - May 2022

Updated 15 December 2023

Sonia Flynn - Chief Probation Officer

1. Foreword

Welcome to the Bi-monthly Probation Service Change Bulletin – keeping you updated on what is happening across the Probation Service. I’m Sonia Flynn and I’ll be hosting this month’s bulletin. I’m the Chief Probation Officer. My role covers the operational management of the Probation Service and I am also Head of the Probation Profession.

We will shortly be sharing our Regional Reducing Reoffending Plans (RRRPs) with our stakeholders. Our RRRPs demonstrate the most important and public-facing activities that we are prioritising to reduce reoffending, enabling partners in a region to see in one place what HMPPS has to offer, and how to develop better partnership working with us. The plans launched in summer 2022 will be the baseline for three years, with an annual update in each year.

Peer-led work is widely recognised for its benefits and can be a powerful experience for people on probation. We have now established a national Peer-Led Development Group to drive forward and deliver a consistent approach to peer led services, learning from the excellent work carried out in some of the previous Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). The St Giles Wise Engaging People on Probation contract is also helping us to develop a strong internal culture of lived experience involvement and engagement.

It is now less than a month until we mark the year anniversary of probation unification, I wanted to recognise all of the great work that has taken place over the last year. One year in, I believe the Probation Service is in a really strong position to focus on delivering excellence across the system.

I hope the below updates are useful in providing an insight to what probation has been focussed on over the past few months. Our next edition will be published in July, so please keep an eye on this page for further updates.

2. Workforce Programme

In the last bulletin it was highlighted that Probation had launched an enhanced recruitment campaign and had met their 2020/2021 target for PQiP (Professional Qualification in Probation) recruitment of 1,000. We are pleased to announce that we have now met our 2021/2022 target of 1,500 PQiPs , this recruitment drive makes up part of the Government’s Beating crime plan published last July and puts Probation in a strong position to continue delivering on what was set out in the Target Operating Model (TOM). There is a commitment to take on a further 1,500 trainee probation officers in 2022/2023.

We are also continuing to run several recruitment campaigns across probation.

3. Community Payback – a role in combating Climate Change?

Community Payback, since inception, has been working on environmental projects to enhance public access to the country’s natural resources. This fantastic work is now seen as a resource that can contribute towards ambitious Government environmental commitment to protect and improve 30% of land in the UK by 2030 (30 by 30 plan). Consequently, the Landscapes review recently published by DEFRA has for the first-time mentioned Community Payback as a resource for the countries National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

This winter Community Payback worked with communities to plant close to 10,000 trees which will absorb about 2,100 tonnes of carbon a year when they are mature. They also help to enhance the natural environment. But tree planting is just one aspect of the way that Community Payback can be a resource to address climate change. Probation want to take the best projects currently running and make them available across all probation regions. This will build a range of environmental projects that local community and national leaders can be proud of.

Current projects include a range of environmental work, from recycling to wildlife habitat creation. Following successful trials, HMPPS has entered a partnership with the Marine Conservation Society who run a citizen science project working out what is washing up on our coastline and where it comes from. Community Payback will clean the rest of the beach at the same time.

The MoJ has agreed a vision for sustainability and to lead the way in Greening Government; to embed environmental sustainability in everything we do. To do this Probation are empowering staff to consider how to deliver Community Payback through a greener lens. The MoJ has an organisational target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 41% by 2025; helping the UK deliver its 78% reduction target by 2035, and Net Zero by 2050, as set out in the Climate Change Act.

Community Payback Teams across England and Wales this year supported Keep Britain Tidy’s ‘Great British Spring Clean’ campaign from 25 March to 1 April, running clean-up projects that visibly improved the local area and green spaces. Community Payback Teams delivered litter picks, graffiti removal and vegetation clearance. The initiative was part of our push to deliver highly visible projects that tangibly benefit local communities and support the environment.

See Minister Malthouse talk to a Community Payback supervisor about the importance of the work he does with people on probation.

4. Reducing Reoffending

The Government is investing £550m over the next three years to reduce reoffending. People who leave prison with strong foundations to make a success of their lives are less likely to reoffend.

The HMPPS Reducing Reoffending, Partnerships and Accommodation (RRPA) directorate is delivering a major programme of work to ensure more prisoners and prison leavers can access a home, a job and treatment for substance misuse.

As part of the creation of an improved Prisoner Education Service, we have kicked off a major market engagement exercise with the launch of the Prior Information Notice. Over the coming months we will be seeking the views of a wide range of education suppliers on how prisoners can be equipped with the skills and qualifications they need to get jobs or apprenticeships after they leave custody. A virtual launch event took place on 26 April attended by more than 200 suppliers.

The new Community Accommodation Service Tier 3 (CAS3) was launched last year in five regions, providing transitional housing for prison leavers at risk of homelessness. Work is now well underway to roll the programme out across England and Wales, seeking to ensure that no-one who is subject to probation supervision is released homeless. Regional supplier events were recently held in six new CAS3 regions to gain interest from suppliers.

Employment Advisory Boards continue to be rolled out in Resettlement prisons across England and Wales. The boards link prisons and employers, ensuring prisoners gain the skills and links to job opportunities they need to find work on release. There are now nearly 40 Board Chairs and 20 boards are up and running. An event was held on 29 April to bring board chairs and key stakeholders together.

Recruitment of new staff to support work to reduce reoffending at a local level also continues. RRPA have advertised for Prison Employment Leads, Neurodiversity Support Managers and Health and Justice Co-ordinators to support more prisoners and prison leavers to get a job, access to education and training, and support for mental health and substance misuse issues. A new role of Head of Education, Skills and Work is also being trialled in 17 prisons, who will work with partners across HMPPS and local businesses to ensure that prisoners get the right skills, education and training.

5. Electronic Monitoring

Electronic Monitoring continues to increase the number of individuals being monitored, the total number monitored include those supervised by Probation as well as individuals subject to pre-trial bail and Home Office immigration proceedings. The latest statistics bulletin highlights the increase.

A refresh of the Alcohol Monitoring Statistics were published on 11 March 2022 to support the one year milestone of Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) for England and Wales. Over 3000 orders have now been imposed and compliance rates have remained consistent with more than 97% of the days that people on probation were monitored being alcohol free. For further information, check out the statistics breakdown.

Check out the statistics animation posted on the HMPPS Twitter account to support the milestone anniversary.

Alcohol Monitoring on Licence (AML) will be introduced in England this June and will provide us with the opportunity to monitor the alcohol consumption of those released from prison on licence.

6. Wales

In Wales where the transition of case management took place in December 2019, the Short Term Sentence function early adoption activity is now approaching the two year implementation milestone in August 2022. In addition, the new Resettlement model has also been launched in Wales and is aiming to drive positive outcomes for those being released from custody, with robust pre-release planning and referrals to Commissioned Rehabilitative Service providers to meet the risks and needs of people on probation optimising chances of successful resettlement back into the community.

7. Commissioned Rehabilitative Service

Key probation interventions, such as; Accommodation, Women’s Services, and Personal Wellbeing, are delivered by Commissioned Rehabilitative Service (CRS) providers to sentenced people in prison and on probation.  People on probation can also access Employment Training and Education (ETE) interventions via CRS providers. We are also currently working on extending the contracts for Accommodation and Women’s services to unsentenced people in prison and expect commencement in Summer 2022.  Additional CRS contracts to provide Finance, Benefits and Debt, and Dependency and Recovery services will commence across a number of Probation Regions in Autumn 2022.

As part of the CRS, the new Engaging People on Probation (EPOP) three year contract was awarded to St Giles Wise Group on 1 February 2022.  St Giles Wise Group will help to provide expert advice, support, training and development activities to probation colleagues, to develop their skills and facilitate delivery of wider engagement work with people on probation – the contract will help to build an engagement and involvement culture across probation.